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mandarin

For some reason, the fact that I’m learning Mandarin seems to impress lots of people. Whatever – I guess it’s because it’s a tonal language and doesn’t use a Latin alphabet? You could say the same thing about plenty of otherlanguages like Russian and Arabic, but I only speak the one language right now so I’m not exactly in a good place to judge…

Anyway, I’ve poked at it for a while now, but 3-4 months ago I really started focusing on it, and now I’m making fantastic progress. It wasn’t just the extra focus though, because doing a few things differently really helped!

All my life, I’ve spoken English and only English. I’ve travelled broadly, across Asia and Europe, and knowing just one more language wouldn’t have been enough. Even then, in the strictest sense, I’ve never needed to know a foreign language. It’s amazing what pointing and speaking slowly and trying different words can do. In short, I’ve always got by. So why learn another language? Three reasons. Three huge, gob-smacking, little game-winning reasons that have nothing to do with utility and everything to do with happiness.